Some time ago I incurred the wrath of several members by stating that things markedly castellano...including the zeta and vosotros...were not always taken well here in the Southwest. Now here I am, trying to catch up on my reading, and the attitude I was referring to is right there in Anaya's latest book, Shaman Winter! Keep in mind that Anaya is a very respected author! I don't know if the idea appeals to anyone, but I'd like to share impressions of this book with someone from the group. I think those who live some distance from the Southwest (or who do not really deal with the Mecha/Hispanic movement) might be surprised by the hostility towards both the Spaniards and Americans that runs through this novel!

Well, here goes my wrath :p, la maestra...

I haven't read the book, and don't plan to if it contains the negatively-charged anti-Spain attitude you've mentioned. I'm sure it's drivel. A real Mexican author who doesn't have time to be an idiot as he's too busy making sense while telling the story the way it is would be Carlos Fuentes. He doesn't always paint the sweetest picture of Spain, but he doesn't ignore what's wrong with the "latino" psyche today either. Fuentes seems to see the two classifications (Spain and "hispanoamérica") as they are: deeply intertwined, for better or for worse, as they;ve been for over 500 years now.

Anyone who is a Spanish-speaker and opts out of studying the ENTIRE language denies themselves the opportunity of learning the entire history. Oddly enough, in all my years in "the southwest" I have yet to see a push by all of the "Mecha/hispanic" activists (read: racists) for "bilingual nahuatl" classes in elementary schools. They don't seem to have a problem with the Spanish language until they try to deal with its country of origin. Maybe MAPA should spend its time pushing for Mayan classes. Aren't they "selling out" by wanting Spanish? I'd be curious to know what percentage of those involved in Mecha, MAPA or any other activist group has NO Spanish blood in them at all...I think you'd find a large group of disappointed activists as they gazed up their family tree from the trunk and saw all the Spanish "wood" on the branches.

One more interesting note: I've been seeing a lot more of the Zapata t-shirts with the now infamous "Not Mexican, Not Latino, Not Hispanic..." tirade on the back. I actually took a moment to ask a woman who was wearing one what her name was. Her answer? Paulina López . I was hoping her name was Xochimilco or something, which would have validated her attire to me. Instead, she carried a very Spanish name, spoke a very Spanish language, and looked very "latina". It seemed, however, that she had simply fallen into the "I hate Spain, Spanish and anything latino" movement that is propogated by movements like the ones you mentioned and authors like Anaya (according to your brief synopsis; I speculate for having not read "Shaman Winter").

Getting back to my original point: Spanish is a WHOLE language, and should be at least exposed to the student of Spanish in its entirety. Picking and choosing based on one's experience simply colors the educational experience for the student to the teacher's liking. As an instructor in public education, I felt it my duty to present the whole pie, not one that had been scavenged by vultures. The writings of sensationalistic authors who preach the gospel of intolerance and division are best left to the history classes or better yet, to the bookshelf.

Feel my wrath...ooooh

Yup, I feel the burning embers of wrath even through the heat of a Tucson summer! This book is not my cup of tea on many levels...among them, it is way too otherworldly (crystal hugging) for me and takes leaps of logic that I just cannot deal with! I read the book because it was on a list of "important" new Southwestern books, and because Anaya is considered a god in the Hispanic literary circles. The negative attitude toward Spain, though, is something I think folks should be aware of since the Hispanic population of the US is not only steadily growing, but is steadily growing in power! This is a novel and not a grammar book, so no mention is made of the vosotros form. What troubles me is the view of history and culture that this man (dangerous, I think, because he is so revered)projects. Oddly, the book I read right after this one points out that the life Native Americans and Mecha-Mexicans look back on is one that includes the horse...and that was brought here by the cursed Spaniards!

By the way, my students generally ask for more information on vosotros and then learn it eagerly because THEY decided they wanted to learn it and not because I forced them into it...and with 13-15 year olds, "force" is the correct word. You and I will never agree on this in part because you are no longer teaching and therefore have not had to keep looking for ways to get kids to learn against their will AND because you were teaching college kids and not 7th graders...and believe me, there is a huge difference between the two. In addition, I am only teaching level one (think in terms of "See Spot run" and not Cervantes). No one but you would ever accuse me of shortchanging the language

I have had to teach card holding members of Mecha, though, AND had the pleasure of being taken to the administration (more than one occasion, además) for not being sensitive to the needs and beliefs of my chicano students who basically believe that they are ALL direct descendants of the Aztecs!

I think I'll take my asbestos underwear off for a while...it chafes during the monsoon!

(Rudolfo Anaya is, according to the book jacket, "professor emeritus of English at the University of New Mexico.")

[ 07-06-2001: Message edited by: la maestra ]

I must have misrepresented myself...I taught grades 9-12, not college. I don't ever remember bringing the age group up, but oh well...

I know what you mean about being toted up to admin. I taught "entry-level" Spanish as well, in addition to "Spanish for Native Speakers" which is where the Mecha fun began. For the most part, however, the administration knew me, knew what kind of person I was, and always sided with me, knowing that I wouldn't do anything stupid.

After the kids realized that even a gachupín like me could speak, write and understand Spanish as well or better than any one of them, they settled into some learning. As for the Español 1 classes, I never forced anything on anyone. As a matter of fact, vosotros was presented as part of the language, but NEVER appeared on my exams (in five years I never disclosed this fact to any student, and no one ever caught on!!).

I think we have more in common than you might have led yourself to believe. I miss teaching dearly and would leave my present job this afternoon if I could support my family on what a teacher makes. That's another story altogether... By the way you're spending your summer concerned with reading, planning and thinking of ways to reach your students, it's apparent to me that you also care that you give your students the best they can get, regardless of the "cost".

I think you're right to read the author for exposure to the viewpoint (although you seem to have been exposed quite a bit by the sound of your stories of admin/student confrontation!). Since I'm not under the same pressure to "understand", I'll opt out.\

Keep up the great work!

CaliBasco [who thinks Francisco Ibáñez deserves the Nobel Prize for literature!]

Ay, Calibasco! Out here, being a gachupín is absolutely the worst thing you can be! When we moved here from Chicago (where, by the way, I taught the vosotros form without a problem) I noticed an underlying hostility that I really could not understand. What could people have against me, given the fact that I had just arrived from another state? The only explanation I ever got was that I couldn't possibly understand because I am not Mexican! So I began in earnest to study the problem. I got a fellowship from the National Council for the Humanities to study the differences in colonization strategies of the two coasts to try to find out why being white and speaking Castillian Spanish were so hateful. I learned a lot, but not enough, I guess, to fully understand or be able to deal with the mind boggling animosity that I ran into on a regular basis.

I was hired to teach ESL and bilingual classes. In the period of time I taught I heard humdoozer comments like "We need more bilingual teachers. Look at you...you're all white!" (bilingual, I guess, can only be a one way street.) A prominent person in the school district said that in his opinion, no one but a Mexican could possibly be bicultural! And so it went!

I have had students and their parents protest things like: I am a racist because when I figure out averages I divide the "little" number by the "big" number which always gives the Mexican kids a lower score than they deserve (the counselor- Hispanic- decided to move the child to another class instead of pointing out that mathematics cannot be racist!); I violated a child's civil liberties by making her speak English in English class; I contributed to violence in Hispanic households by phoning home to report that girls were ditching class (I was told that the problem was that I am a white woman and from then on, only a Mexican could make phone calls home for Hispanics in my class!!)and on and on.....Parents complained that their children weren't passing my class because my Spanish was "funny" and I made them use made up words like camión for truck instead of troca and almuerzo instead of lonche! I had Yaqui parents complain that I was violating their cultural beliefs by trying to make their children speak English well! I came within inches of a nervous breakdown!

I left the bilingual department and now just teach Spanish, but the same undercurrent creeps up every now and then...the same sort of thing that appeared in this damned book...and it makes me crazy! When I began teaching back in '68 I had no idea that Spanish would be a politically hot issue! I don't know if there are any others out there who live/work in the southwest and Spanish or anglo gachupines who have had to deal with this sort of crap. Reading more of it in this book, knowing that this author has some clout in academic circles and that this sort of poison is being spooned out to students...aaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhh!

Sorry...I guess you got to hear a lot more than you wanted to! Yes, perhaps we have a lot more in common than would appear, and yes, I care a great deal about what my students learn (a colleague took me aside recently and told me my problem was I was just too passionate about my class and took things too personally! HOW CAN I TEACH INDIFFERENTLY?!?!?!?!?!?!) I appreciate your kind comments and I actually have made an attempt to sneakily mention vosotros more after our last series of conversations on the topic!

[ 07-06-2001: Message edited by: la maestra ]

Please don't be so harsh on Sr. Anaya, his other books are quite enjoyable, including children's books. Plus, we have family ties on my mother's side. :o

Lamaestra:

I had no idea that such situations might happen, and that pseuo-spanish (being obviously troca a "word" constructed from "truck", and "lonche" from "lunch") was being teached over the real spanish one. I simpathize with you.

I am not speaking of spanish from Spain, for we also have our defects. It is a pleasure for me to hear G. García Marquez or Gloria Estefan (¿Stefan?).

But the difference between the spanish two cultured persons may speak in two different spanish-speaking countries is minimal compared with persons using slang, not to speak of people who suffer a strong influence of another language. Isn't what they speak called "spanglish"?

When I was to Chicago, I talked to a mexican waiter, because a friend of mine, who is a waiter here, in Spain, wanted to know which were the working conditions and salary in the USA. He was rather cold at the beggining, but afterwards he was nice. Later, he asked me how did we see mexicans in Spain, I told him the truth: We don't have anything for or against them, so they are welcome (I have met mexicans in Madrid).

But later on, I met more people, and I was very surprised that we were despiced, that there was like what they seem to consider an "unpaid bill" from our ancestors with them. No matter that it was their ancestors who may have done harm to them, since by the XVI century very few people came back to Spain, they married, settled, and many of the people from mexico are their descendants.

In Spain nobody can imagine these feelings if they are not told about. Spain is probably one of countries that has been invaded and expoliated in the world, but we don't hate nowadays the carthaginians, romans, vikings, gothics, muslims, french, british (Gibraltar), and so on for it.

That has a lot to do with the matter we spoke about in the other forum. Politics, after all. It is a pity that people let themseves be stimulated to hate by shadow powers.

LaDuque, I thought Bless Me, Ultima was excellent, though I was somewhat surprised that Sr. Anaya wrote it in English and that someone else had to translate it for him. I don't know what to make of that now, having read his last book. I know that a lot of Hispanics/Mexicans/Mexican-Americans/Latinos/Chicanos whose families have lived in the US for generations may not speak Spanish (I grew up in a Polish barrio in Chicago and went to Polish school, but I no longer speak Polish!)...and I don't know if that was why he didn't write in Spanish, or because he has this resentment towards "gachupines". I know that really horrible things were done to the Native Americans by the Spaniards and the Americans. I also know that a lot of the Native American tribes were pretty awful to each other as well. New research is showing evidence of cannibalism in the Anasazi tribes both before the Spanish and after! If Sr. Anaya is going to use history in his novel as a basis for character motivation, it sure would be nice (being as he is as respected as he is and in academic circles and all that ) if he would take a broader look at the history of the area. The Spanish and Native cultures...both imperfect and both capable of both greatness and cruelty...are combined in the Southwest. Both cultures were impacted. The Spaniards did a lot to eradicate native customs and beliefs, but they also added things to the area that helped the people here live better. Dwelling on the evils is counterproductive and while it would just upset the hell out of me had it come from an "ordinary" author, it makes me nuts when it comes from someone I have always thought of as being above such things! You are fortunate to have him in your family and I'd LOVE to get into an after dinner discussion with him!

[ 07-11-2001: Message edited by: la maestra ]

la maestra, I live in the southwest as well. Going to college here in Durango, Co., I have read many of Anaya's work, and find him to be one of the most expressive and imaginative of the new wave of Chicano authors. His use of magical realism and communal imagery go way beyond the realm of post-contemporary works. In his older novels, he tried to keep away from being too overtly political. In a video I saw not to long ago, he explains his reasonings for this. Some may become angry with his sentiments towards Americans and Spaniards, but one only has to look into the history of how the native "Mexican" Indians were treated, and how the anglos view the contemporary chicano populace. For those who don't think Anaya is a viable author, your opinion is yours. I feel he is a welcome addition to our ever growing canon.

I believe there is a very good reason why Sr. Anaya writes in English, (I just called a cousin to talk about this back in N.M), Anaya is from a generation in N.M., like my mother, where English was the language they were schooled in, therefore, as we all know, Spanish was only practiced orally, this is true of so many southwestern families, including my own. I know you did not mean that Anaya is any less credible because he has to be translated into Spanish.
I can't tell you how many times I find myself on the defensive when I am asked to prove my "Hispanicness" (I come from a long line of proud New Mexican Spanish on both sides of my blood), because I don't look the stereotypical part-I am Anglo looking with fair skin and blue eyes, and especially since I was not raised speaking Spanish.

Laduque, I certainly did not mean to suggest that Anaya's work suffered at all because he wrote in English, and I frankly feel better about it knowing the reason. As I said, I no longer speak MY heritage language because it was socially unacceptable to speak it, so I understand that loss completely. I feared it was a refusal to speak Spanish in order to make a political statement, and I would have had a problem with that.
Gooseman brought up some interesting topics that I'd really like more information on. (I'm going out of town tomorrow, so if I don't respond, that's why!! ) You said Anaya had decided to make a political statement at this time and I'd like to know what his reasoning was. The Hispanics that I have had the most experience with are having trouble making it through high school, and more trouble making it through college. Part of the problem, as I stated above, was a hostility towards white education and white teachers...maybe more so if the white teacher is speaking Spanish and they don't. Yet if they don't go to college, there won't be any Hispanic teachers! I don't see how encouraging Hispanics to hate white America and to separate itself from Spanish culture helps in any way...and this could be plain old naivete on my part! I am NOT Hispanic and therefore I don't think like a Hispanic. I just don't follow the logic. I taught a kid whose mother was Mexican and whose father was "white". Mom encouraged the kid to join Mecha in the hopes he would learn more about his culture. He came home and asked if he could legally change his last name so he would have a Mexican name because he no longer wanted anything to do with his father and his "race." The mother was beside herself! The rest of the year (I lost track of the boy when he went to high school) he refused to speak to his father other than to answer direct questions and became, according to his mother, really nasty at home. The boy's grades dropped and he barely passed the year. When I think about this sort of thing I wonder what exactly is accomplished by groups like this.

You also mention the Mexican Indians, but don't say which and at what time. We have the Yaqui tribe here from Mexico who were given Native American status by Carter (even though they are originally from Mexico) because they were suffering under Mexican rule. Those Mexican Indians? The Aztecs? I read as much as possible on the history of the southwest because it fascinates me, and as I said earlier, I haven't found a lot of totally angelic people on either side of the issue. I teach my students as true a history as I've been able to uncover (and I mean researching the dusty books at the UofA, not just what text publishers tell me!), but I try to give a total picture...and that includes some of the human sacrifices those lovable Aztecs performed! Even if I could find evidence that all the Native Americans on both sides of the border were completely innocent people who never took a slave or tortured enemies in any way, how would it help descendants of those people today to live in the world they were born into? It is precisely BECAUSE of the power Anaya has as an author that I am upset by the direction he has decided to follow!

In case anybody wants to know which was the "Spanish technological Advantage" towards mexicans, I recomend reading "Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España" by Bernal Diaz del Castillo, one of the conquerors (first-hand information.

This way you will see why 500 men begun the conquer and 2.000 fulfilled it : because all the rest of the people but for the aztecs found them so merciful, fair, ..., compared with aztecs that they joined one by one, from the firs town of Cempoal to the mayor ones like Tascalt ... the only ones who faced them were the aztec ones like Tezcuco.

Horses helped to divide armies (as in any european battle), but they died too, and the mexicans soon learnt it, same as conquerors whose mith as gods soon was over when everybody saw their heads on pikes. When the 2.000 took Mexico, only about 150 of the 500 former ones were alive.

Same as mexicans, the spanish suffered from illnesses the enemy was inmune to.

They lacked food very often.

In the first 500, there were only about 20 horses, about 40 shotguns, and 40 cross-bows. The rest were spears and swords (which the indians also had. There was more people then in Mexico than in Spain, the armiers were of tenths of thousands of people, sometimes hundreds of thousands, ...

How could they possibly win?

Because after the 500 or 2.000 came a huge army of desperate slave races ready to fight to death aginst aztecs. May be that some of these people who claim against spanish is also descendant from one of these races, who were liberated and much better off since.

La maestra, I was basically refering to the first contact with the Aztecs, and through this contact we can trace ideological thinking patterns that still run in our society today. As for teaching a "true" history, I applaud your breaking of the grain. I myself am venturing into the education field. I am teaching a summer program called "Upward Bound," and most of my students are from hispanic lineage. I have tried to incorporate many types of Chicano literature to support the idea of a multi-cultural America. Most of my students have heard of Anaya before, but none of them knew of Cervantes, Cisneros, Soto, or many of the other "minority" authors I had chosen to discuss. It is very important to support all cultural backgrounds. This ensures, hopefully, that the student(s) feel comfortable in their academic surroundings. This will hopefully promote post-secondary education. I will try to get the name of the video I was talking about. I believe it was made in the mid 80s. Have a good day.

(throwing grains of salt every which way...)

OK, i'm passing out salt so y'all can take everything i say here with at least one grain. I teach at UNM (where Anaya IS professor emeritus and IS high profile still) and I teach Chicano and Latino literatures. (Oh no, the dreaded college teacher weighs in! :p ) So my view of Anaya's lit. and the current trend towards Chicano/"indigenous" separatism are colored by my position here, as well as by the fact that I'm Chicana myself.

Anaya: I find most of his writings pretty dreadful. They present a highly romanticized, unrealistic vision of what it means to be New Mexican or Chicano nowadays. His mysteries, which feature detective Sonny Baca, rely much too heavily on deus ex machina in the form of New Agey stuff (supposedly deeply-rooted Mexican indigenous beliefs, but it's all fairly contemporary in his rendering). His books are male-centered and have shallow, unimportant and sterotypical female characters. I much prefer other authors that Gooseman mentioned that do a much better job at representing contemporary Chicano culture without relying on stereotypes of Chicanos and wholesale dismissals (such as of anglo or peninsular cultures). Lorna Dee Cervantes, Sandra Cisneros, Ana Castillo, Gary Soto, Alfredo Vea, Helena Maria Viramontes, Pat Mora, for instance, present a complex vision of Chicano/as.

They do all write in English. Why? Well, why not? Rodriguez's *Hunger of Memory* presents a deeply politicized view of why Chicanos should use English. The more practical side is that, as we live in the U.S. for more and more generations, Spanish is no longer the "creative" language because it is no longer the strongest or dominant language, even for bilinguals.

That said, I think it is important for any student of Spanish language who happens to be Chicano to learn all the variations (or that there are variations, at least) that Spanish presents us with, from Caribbean sound-dropping to Argentinian vos, to the vosotros form in Castilian. I have seen or heard of too many UNM students who expect their regional Spanish to be understood everywhere, enacting in a very unselfconscious way the "ugly American" stereotype on another level. ("What, you don't know what zacate is? I'll just say it louder and louder till you do get it!)

The need to understand that Spanish has many variations parallels the need for our young people to realize that demonizing any one part of their biological/cultural/historical makeup does our communities no good. We look "anglo", we look "latino," we look "indigeous"; we have blue, green, brown, and black eyes; we speak Spanish, we speak some Spanish, we speak no Spanish, we don't even understand "taco"; we are Republicans and Democrats and Greens; y'all get the idea... I could probably go on forever and you'd get bored (if you're not already! )...

my point, essentially, piggybacking on your complaint, lamaestra, is that as long as Chicano/Latino communities idealize and romanticize some distant past, we neglect to focus on the here and now and the MANY MANY problems that face our diverse communities today, from immigration to economic self-sufficiency, to my pet peeve, a DECENT LIBERAL EDUCATION FOR ALL!

ahem. I'll put away my soapbox now. Hmmm... it was a pretty big one, huh?

Ain't nothing boring about this thread. If we are to overcome cultural differences, we have to discuss the issues that build fences between people, and tear them down with knowledge, and respect for each other. I see that developing here.

I'd be more than glad to carry everyone's soap boxes for them, since it's an eye opener for those of us who never see the issues up close and personal.

Wolf (Who never ceases to be amazed at how little he really knows. :()

What is mecha exactly? Is it a widespread group?

MECHA is a student group (both high school and college) for/by Mexican Americans/Chicanos. It believe it got its start in the late 60s along with other civil rights organizations.

The tone and stance that the organization takes really depends on the region in which you live. (i.e., Southwestern Mechistas tend to be a bit more exclusionary, than, for instance, Michigan Mechistas.)

HTH

Picara, you really said it all! While I was traveling I thought through some of my complaints (and disapointment, frankly) with the stance Anaya has chosen to take. You have pretty much nailed it down though! It seems to me that if we are going to get anywhere as a society of diverse groups we are going to have to stop picking at 500 year old sores and start directing our energies towards solving our REAL problems. Thanks for your post!